


What About Now

by KyeAbove



Series: The Reinforcement Of Agony AU [18]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 14:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18012980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyeAbove/pseuds/KyeAbove
Summary: May 4th, 1924. Rural Arkansas. Agony:Bliss.Casper tries to make his nephew smile.





	What About Now

**Author's Note:**

> While the purpose of softer fics with Casper in this series is to show why some people put up with his bullshit later because they remember the relatively good person he used to be before his magic core breaks and corrupts him, it always makes me ill writing them. Anyways, here’s the fic. 
> 
> You may know Seph from So Far Away, but if you passed over that Extra, here’s your first introduction to the kid.

~May 4th, 1924~

* * *

Two things surprised Casper about this kid. That Marjorie had hid him for long, and that she’d named him in honor of her no good brother Jo. Two year old Joseph, better called as Seph, was an enigma. Odd looking too, Casper thought. Lighter auburn hair that matched up with no man Casper had ever seen Marjorie around, and eyes a blue also unlike Marjorie’s.

The fact that Marjorie had carried a man’s child, and hadn’t just become the first to produce a child alone, was odd to Casper. Cause Marjorie always seemed funny to her family. More interested in girls than finding a husband, which admittedly Casper had helped destroy chances of, and Marjorie seemed thankful for that.  

And now little Seph was left alone with him, for some reason. Casper’s son Daniel was asleep, like a good child, cuddled up to Aggie upstairs. She’d been unwell, lately. Casper hoped she was with child, once more, but hoped that child wasn’t like this one. 

Marjorie had to go off and do most of the preparation for mama Josephine’s funeral. Casper lent what time he could, but he had a family to look after now. So while she did the needed work, Marjorie had left her child with him, and the child was not pleased with that.    
  
Casper understood he was a near stranger to Seph but the child had done nothing but pout and look the way his mother had left. Even after Marjorie had assured Seph that Casper was safe to be around, and explained to Casper that it might just be a case of Seph not trusting men, having only known women his entire two years of life. 

That showed in him too, although Marjorie had never been particularly feminine. The little boy was in a soft blue dress and his head of hair was long and loose and curled. Seph looked like a little girl, and at this age it was probably all on Marjorie. Maybe she thought since she hadn’t been allowed to treat Jo as a girl when they were growing up, she was instead doing it to her son. 

Casper wasn’t going to question his sister-in-law’s parenting choices though. She might’ve been peculiar, but she was still the scariest person to Casper, and Casper wouldn’t dare cross her. 

He hoped Seph wasn’t the same.

“Okay, how is this going to go? You pout until your mama finally comes back or you smile for Uncle Cas, and I get you down for a nap?” 

“No.”

“No to what?”

_ “No.” _

“That’s your favorite word, I’m sure.”

“No.” Seph repeated yet again. Casper was sure the kid was toying with him. For the matter of comparison, Casper hoped Daniel wasn’t like this. Daniel was soft and cute and compliant right now, and Casper enjoyed that. This brought Casper no joy.

“Look, I need to do some financial work so I can see if I might need to con my boss into a raise on my paycheck if I can’t support another child. I can’t do that without taking my eye off you and if you’re anything like your namesake -although Joseph wasn’t actually his name- you need constant supervision.” Casper noticed that Seph was actually looking at him now. “You see, Jo heard silly voices and sounds and so often believed them.”    
  
Seph tilted his head at the news. So Casper thought this was his in with the kid. 

“Now, the Andrews are a good Christian family, so it's unlikely Jo was hearing the devil even though he was never a good Christian. Plus, it was often funny things. One time he kept swearing he heard a cat, then he’d point where the cat supposedly was and there was no cat there! Then he’d just say he didn’t see it, just heard it. Imagine an an invisible, no furred cat! I’d finally have an animal that didn’t make me sneeze.”

Still no smile from Seph, but the pout was gone. 

“He’d sometimes get funny and start talking to things that weren’t there. Couldn’t even say they were magical and supernatural creatures because I can see those too. Or you’d start talking to him and he’d be lost looking at something else, and you’d find out he’d been out of his mind for half the day. I remember one time he got loose, and got convinced this yellow circle was going to eat him and we had to rescue him from a tree as he started screaming about ghosts.” 

Now a slight smile crossed Seph’s face. Casper grinned in return.   
  
“He kept yelling about being trapped in a maze, and his father laughed a lot.” In mockery, but an irrelevant detail. “Your uncle Jo was silly and weird.”    
  
“Yes?” That was even more progress with the kid. 

“Yes. I bet you’d find your uncle Jo very funny.” 

“No.”   
  
Casper sighed. ‘No’ must really be Seph’s favourite word. 

“How about that nap now?”    
  
“No.” 

Casper gritted his teeth, and decided that if Seph was anything like Jo, the whole family had another long road ahead of them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Seph has been raised as gender non-conforming, something he’ll continue on, on his own decision. Joey _wanted_ to be gender non-conforming, but his father had other ideas. 
> 
> Casper seemed exactly the type to tell 'funny' stories about Joey's serious mental illness. Joey dissociated and hallucinated so hard he transcended decades of time and space and thought of Pac-man long before even its creators did. There is a specific reason for me making a Pac-man reference though, as the series will eventually reveal.


End file.
